A MUSEUM is offering the chance to come face-to-face with a real life sea monster that recently gave a novice angler the fright of her life.

Angler Val Fletcher hit the headlines last week when she reeled in a 12ft oarfish off the coast at Skinningrove, east Cleveland. Her catch astounded experts because the oarfish is normally found 3,000ft under the Atlantic or Mediterranean.

But the astonishing catch is not the first time that an angler has come face-to-face with a true leviathan that has spawned many a fisherman's tale.

An 18ft-long oarfish was hauled ashore at Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, one night in 1866 - and it is that beast,of the deep, now safely stuffed and mounted, that visitors can see at the Museum of Hartlepool, which is at the town's Historic Quay.

Claire Munroe, Hartlepool Borough Council's marketing officer, said: "The oarfish in the museum is certainly a bizarre-looking beast and it's easy to see why a glimpse of such a creature in years gone by might have sparked seafarers' yarns of strange sea monsters."

The museum is open daily from 10am to 5pm with the last admission at 4pm.